


Others to Fraternize With

by pineapplesquid



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotionally Repressed, Historical, Humor, M/M, Missing Scene, Victorian, and Gabriel for muscular christianity, blaming Crowley for prosperity gospel, taking liberties with the history of croquet
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 01:13:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20462600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pineapplesquid/pseuds/pineapplesquid
Summary: In the wake of what is surely a minor quarrel, what better way to demonstrate how little you need your counterpart than to request a little extra help from your own side?It doesn’t take either Aziraphale or Crowley long to remember why they don’t usually do that.





	Others to Fraternize With

**Author's Note:**

> This fic owes about as much to Connie Willis's excellent To Say Nothing of the Dog as it does to Good Omens itself.
> 
> Although I definitely consider them to be in love and just badly repressed at this point, it's not explicit in this fic, which could pretty much be read as gen. They're not going to actually get together here.

**London, 1863**

The problem was really quite obvious, Aziraphale realized, some months after their argument. He’d gotten too caught up, that was it. In this new light, his general apathy in the last few months even made sense. He was simply too used to reacting to Crowley; it had, after all, been some centuries since they set up the Arrangement, and before that he’d spent quite a bit of time thwarting the demon’s plans. It was time for him to start taking action again. Decisive action.

Half an hour later he was sitting down with a fresh cup of tea to contemplate the idea. The problem, of course, was deciding on what type of action. Heaven would, no doubt, keep sending him on his usual errands, but if he wanted to do something more striking it would be better to present them with an idea. Nothing that would take him too far out of London, he thought. Although, the country was fairly pleasant this time of year. Well, he was sure that if he looked around a bit, he could find a project. To do by himself— 

That was it, he realized. No need to work alone! Or with a demon. Better by far to go back to the natural way of things. A couple of his brethren down on loan to help with a project. That’s what he needed.

**

His first thought had been to take a nap. He wasn’t tired, precisely, not after his recent 60-year indulgence. But that clearly had gone better than being awake had done so far. Trust the angel to take his perfectly reasonable concerns about Hellish retaliation and over-react. Crowley had no intention of offing himself. He didn’t know what, if anything, was waiting for him if he did, but based on what he’d seen so far for the humans he wasn’t optimistic that he’d enjoy it.

But napping was easier said than done. It had taken him forever to fall asleep, and then he’d woken up after only three days, feeling decidedly antsy. He’d managed to drop back off, but was woken up the next morning by the smell of smoke as a rather charred letter was dropped through his mail slot*, and officially decided to give up. 

* The last thing he wanted was humans sending him things, and there was generally no slot on his door, but Hell, as usual, hadn’t bothered to ask.

Now he was slouched in his chair, eyeing the smoldering envelope on the desk unenthusiastically. More orders. Temptations, all of which he was going to have to do on his own. A quick glance down the list confirmed it; no fun, any of them. Hell had no imagination, that was the problem. It had been just about bearable when he’d been able to make his own amusement by either evading the angel or coaxing him to turn a blind eye, but with coaxing out of the picture, and evasion not even necessary, routine temptations were going to be hopelessly boring.

No, that was wrong, he didn’t need the angel for amusement. A more interesting, more creative set of temptations, that would do it. And he had plenty of other people to work with. Yes, that would show the angel—an influx of demons into London, sins and temptations all over the city, and then he’d be more than willing to return to their Arrangement. 

Crowley took a piece of black-bordered paper from his desk and began to write. _“Dear Lord Dagon,_” he began, “_I am writing to request reinforcements. . .” _By the time they showed up, he’d have come up with a plan for what to do with them.

**

Standing in front of the cluster of Archangels wasn’t really getting easier, Aziraphale felt, even though his conscience was slightly clearer than it had been of late. _Nobody here is in league with a demon, no_. _Last time he asked me for something, I refused! _Not that that would count for much if they ever found out any of the rest. He felt a hollow sort of pride about it, though.

“So,” Gabriel was saying impatiently. “You said that you had something exciting in mind, Aziraphale?”

“Ah, yes,” Aziraphale said, wrenching his thoughts back to the topic at hand. “Well, as I believe I mentioned in a report a year or so ago—if you’re familiar with the contents—”

“Yes,” Uriel said. “We are, of course, _diligent _about keeping up with the paperwork.”

“Right, of course,” Aziraphale muttered, looking down. “Well, then, you know about how popular this new ‘spiritualism’ thing is getting among the humans.”

“Right,” Gabriel said. “They think they can talk to the dead or something. Ridiculous. Who wants to talk to dead humans, anyway?”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, sidetracked, “Some of them, you know, loved them. They miss them.”

Gabriel looked puzzled. “But they’re human. They knew they were going to die someday.”

“Er, right.” They never would understand humanity, would they. “The point is, some of them are getting very enthusiastic about it.”

“So?” Michael asked, looking bored with the proceedings. “We read your report. The humans are being foolish. Why should we care?”

“Right, of course,” Aziraphale said, trying not to sound too flustered. He’d written out his list of points back in his bookshop—maybe he should have brought the sheet with him. “Well, first of all, it’s, um, banned.” 

“Give no regard to mediums and familiar spirits,” Sandalphon said pompously. “And the soul that turneth after such as have familiar spirits, and after wizards, to go whoring after them, I will even set my face against that soul, and will cut him off from among his people.”

“Er, right,” Aziraphale said. “Exactly that.”

Gabriel was nodding approvingly at Sandalphon, as if they’d made an actual contribution. “Excellent point. Good one. We’re gonna double down on that. But the humans sin all the time. That’s what you’re supposed to be down there to deal with,” he added to Aziraphale. “Why is this one worth a dedicated task force?”

“Well, for another thing, it gives them a false idea about the afterlife. That souls are, you know, just hanging around somewhere, rather than heading to their appropriate destination.” The Archangels were nodding, but none of them looked very convinced. Aziraphale’s stomach sank. He’d managed to get himself excited about this one; he didn’t really want to be heading back to Earth alone just to get back in the same old round. Time for the big one in his arsenal. “The real risk, though, is the demons. . .”

**

“Crowley,” a voice grated, just inches from his ear.

Crowley jolted upright, eyes opening onto the horrific sight of Hastur’s face. He tried to smother his scream, which emerged as more of strangled croak.

“Hard at work, I see,” the demon growled.

Crowley blinked bleary eyes until he could make out more of his surroundings. He’d been slumped over his desk. The trace of a puddle indicated where he’d apparently drooled on it when he’d fallen asleep—when? “What day—” he started, before managing to cut himself off. 

Hastur smirked. “Been a while?” he asked.

Crowley’s eye caught on an empty bottle on the desk, and then another. The belated realization hit him that part of the problem was that his inconveniently human body was remembering how much alcohol he’d consumed back before whenever it was that he’d fallen asleep. He concentrated and banished the headache and queasiness in his middle. His surroundings abruptly became clearer. It did not improve the situation as much as he had hoped.

“Hastur, old boy,” he said, trying for a casual lean back in his chair. The effect was somewhat spoiled when it started to go over backwards and he had to rock wildly forward again. “What, ah, brings you here?”

“You,” Hastur said, now smiling with his usual grimace. “Head office sent me up to ask about what you wanted this lot for.” He jerked his head to the side, and Crowley noticed that there were two identical demons standing there, looking hard like they were trying to go unnoticed. 

“Oh, right,” Crowley said. The dim recollection of a letter that he’d written surfaced, along with a feeling familiar to any student who’d told themselves that they’d do the reading before breakfast the next morning. 

“. . . Well?” Hastur asked after the pause reached uncomfortable proportions. “Head office wants to know what’s so big that you can’t do it yourself.”

“Right,” Crowley said, mentally scrambling. The image of an advertisement that he’d seen in the paper crossed his flailing mind, and he seized it desperately. “It’s the mediums,” he said.

“The what?”

Crowley could just see a comment coming down the track. It would be something like _but what about the larges_. He hurried to head it off. “Mediums. Communing with the spirits and suchlike.” He waved a hand airily. 

“Humans have been doing that for forever,” Hastur said, sounding disinterested. “Not a lot of tempting there, is there?”

“They’re not actually supposed to,” Crowley muttered. “No, but, like, a lot more of them are doing it these days. You know how these things come and go up here.”

Hastur was staring at him in a way that made it evident that he didn’t know any such thing. “Fine. Go tempt some humans, then. That’s supposedly your job up here, anyway. Still don’t see what you need the team for.”

“Yeah, but there’s an opportunity here,” Crowley said. The glimmer of an idea had finally occurred to him, and he was clinging to it with both hands like a being who knew that the only alternative was a decade or two drowning in a pit of lava. “You see, they think that the spirits can communicate with the, you know.” At Hastur’s blank look, he nodded upward. “Folks upstairs.” 

“Yeah, and?” 

Crowley tutted, warming to his theme. “These mediums, they’re opening themselves up. Very receptive state of mind they put themselves in. More fools, them. Angels don’t go in for possessing people. But you know who does?” 

Hastur’s brow furrowed in attempted thought. It looked painful. Crowley let the pause stretch, but eventually an un-demonic sense of mercy moved him. “Us. Demons. We can possess them. Tell them whatever we want, and they’ll think that it’s a message from, well.” Crowley nodded upwards again.

The dim light of comprehension finally clicked on in Hastur’s eyes. One of the other demons laughed. “Tell them to kill each other, that sort of thing.”

The state of Hell these days was enough to make you despair, it really was. Was a sense of style too much to ask for? “Or something,” he agreed diplomatically. A few weeks with him, at any rate, and these demons should be able to learn something. “Thing is, the humans these days want a lot of convincing that something occult is going on. Strange lights, rapping noises, spontaneously-appearing messages, that kind of thing. I can’t possess someone and work miracles at the same time.” At least, he didn’t think he could. He was pretty sure nobody had ever tried it. Not to mention, he had no intention of posessing someone himself. It always left him feeling like he had bits of someone’s else’s soul stuck in his metaphorical teeth. 

Hastur frowned. “Fine. Sounds like it’s worth a try. You can have them. But Downstairs wants you to know that, given your record, they’re expecting something particularly impressive when you’ve got a team.” 

Crowley refused to look intimidated. “You got it, boss.”

Hastur glared at him and disappeared in a cloud of smoke. Crowley eyed the other two demons, then glanced out the window. It looked like it was coming on to evening, whatever day it was by now. The silence in the room was getting awkward. “Hey,” he tried a general smile. “You want to go get a drink?”

**

All they needed to do was convince the humans that the mediums were faking it. Since they were, in fact, all faking it, it should be simple. Right? 

Aziraphale had tried explaining this to his new companions. It had taken a few false starts.

The three new angels had shown up that morning at his shop, escorted by Gabriel. “Three of our best!” he had boomed. “I know, I know. All of our people are great. It’s Heaven, after all.” He’d smiled, and the light glancing off his teeth went _ting_. 

Fortunately, he hadn’t stayed long after performing introductions and assuring them all that he had total confidence in their ability to make a game plan and collaboratively fabricate principle-based change. Aziraphale hadn’t asked what that meant, too weighed down by the growing realization that after Gabriel left, he was going to have to talk to the new arrivals by himself. He’d never been that good with his peers, but he gamely offered them tea, weathered their shocked looks, and tried to make small talk for a few minutes before giving up and wandering into the back to make himself a cup. Thus fortified, he’d decided that it was time to, as Gabriel would doubtless put it, bring them up to speed.*

* Heaven as a whole had never thought to devise official onboarding protocols, as there were never any new recruits. Hell _did _write some, on the off chance. They had started as a tortuously thick book of guidelines, checklists, and paperwork for non-existent benefits, but it had all gone a bit downhill in the early 21stcentury when the demons in charge confused it with waterboarding. The next fallen angel was in for an unpleasant and rather damp surprise, whenever they arrived.

Lahabiel, the tallest of the three, who’d had to be told to take the metallic streaks out of her hair before talking to any humans, was watching him closely as he talked. Abalim, who’d tried to argue when Aziraphale told him that the patches of gold on his palms would _definitely_be noticed, was staring off into space. Omniel, who’d looked just like a human before he’d even spoken to her, was eyeing his teacup as he sipped, lips faintly pursed.

The first time he’d tried to explain, he’d only gotten a few words in before Omniel had interrupted him. “They’re consorting with spirits?” she’d asked, sounding shocked. “But it’s forbidden.” 

“‘Give no regard to mediums—'” Abalim started, but Aziraphale cut him off.

“Well, they _say _they’re consorting with spirits,” he said quickly, “But they aren’t actually. It’s all a trick.”

“Does that still count?” Lahabiel asked interestedly. “If they just say they are?”

“Bearing false witness,” Omniel said quickly. “Which is also forbidden. They should know that.”

“Well,” Aziraphale said, trying for a smile, “Humans do sin, sometimes. If they didn’t, we wouldn’t be down here!” Omniel frowned at him, unsatisfied. “Which is why we’re going to try to stop them,” he said hastily, and started his explanation over.

This time it got a little bit further, until he mentioned demons.

“So, we’re here to cast them out,” Lahabiel said eagerly.

“Er, that is, if we see any, but I’m not sure that—”

“We can’t just let them roam the earth tempting the humans! We have to smite them,” she said.

“Well, er, it does depend a bit on the circumstances, you see—” Aziraphale waffled.

“’You cannot have a part in both the Lord’s table and the table of the demons,’” Abalim intoned. Aziraphale suppressed a twitch. That was the whole point of this, after all.

“You know what, if we see any demons we can discuss it then, how about that?” he offered, a bit weakly. Nobody seemed particularly satisfied with the compromise, but Lahabiel dropped it, and Aziraphale tried to pick up where he’d left off.

“So what are our jobs?” Abalim interrupted as he tried to explain why the potential demonic involvement was such a threat.

“Pardon?”

“I just want to know what you want us to do,” Abalim said. “How will I be helping thwart the demons?” 

“Oh. Well. Why do you ask?”

“It is said, ‘Clearly-demarcated job responsibilities and an organizational flow chart will maximize team effectiveness,’” Abalim said seriously.

Aziraphale stared at him. It couldn’t be from the Book, not unless the humans had made yet another appallingly modern translation. “Said by whom?” he asked.

“Gabriel.”

Of course. “I thought we could talk about that together!” Aziraphale said brightly. “I don’t exactly have a full plan yet. I thought we could do a little reconnaissance and then, you know, make one together! More heads are better, and all that,” he finished, trying not to let his smile grow too fixed in the face of three rather skeptical expressions. But nowhere was it written, he thought, a little rebelliously, that his management style had to ape Gabriel’s. He was trying something new, so there. 

**

Aziraphale had done some reading. Newspapers, a bit outside his usual material, but it seemed the best place to find current information. There were plenty of accounts of spiritists and séances, it turned out, once one started looking. An afternoon combing through the local accounts, and Aziraphale felt that he was getting a pretty good handle on what one could expect at these events, either private or public. A handful of demonstrations of supernatural presences—he saw mentions of rocking tables, mysterious lights, floating objects, and inexplicable noises, plus something called ectoplasm, which was rather a mystery to him—and then some type of communication from “the spirits,” either written, verbal, or rapped.

Now armed with knowledge, he sat down with the others to make a plan. “So,” he said, trying to sound positive as he stared at three impassive faces. “I was thinking that we might attend some of these seances, and unmask the tricks. Show the audience that the effects are fake, and surely they’ll lose confidence before there can be any serious consequences.” 

“It’s a sin,” Omniel said abruptly. “Trying to contact any kind of spirits. Why are we tolerating it at all?

“Look,” Aziraphale said, a little desperately. “It is a sin, but it’s a small one. Not really hurting anyone, is it?” 

Omniel frowned. “It still tarnishes their souls.” 

“Yes, of course,” Aziraphale said. “But not as much as they could be. It’s not as bad as some of the things they could do. If demons get through to them, it could be much worse.”

Omniel still looked disturbed. “We should be bringing the humans to goodness in all things,” she said.

Aziraphale smiled at her. “We have to pick our battles, sometimes,” he said gently. 

Lahabiel perked up. “Battles?” she asked, interestedly.

“A figure of speech,” Aziraphale said quickly. “Humans are flawed, it’s in their nature now. If we can save them from the big sins, sometimes we have to let the little ones go.” 

“We’re maintaining big-picture clarity on long-term objectives,” Abalim chimed in, apparently in support.

“Sure, if you like,” Aziraphale said agreeably. 

Omniel wasn’t placated, not really, but she didn’t speak up again as Aziraphale began to outline the beginning of his idea.

**

The start of the plan had gone quite well, actually. Which was exactly what Crowley would have predicted if asked, of course, but internally he hadn’t been quite so certain. He’d left Oztieth and Orlieth back in the cellar where they were hiding out—a perfectly nice townhouse, he had, and he’d even offered them the guest room, which he thought was more generous than anyone had any right to expect, but they wanted to skulk in the cellar of a disused warehouse—to do some solo reconnaissance. He started with a medium named Madam Irinka, who was already making a name for herself. The table rocking was fairly standard—he was pretty sure that she’d just managed to get a foot under one of the legs—but the other attendees seemed to buy it. 

Crowley himself was particularly impressed by her arrangement with the slate; in the darkness of the séance he could see her use her elbow to knock away the black cardboard covering it and reveal the message already chalked underneath, but it was clear that to the rest of the humans, it had been as impressive as a real miracle. The message, a vague warning to one of the company to “Beware of the sea,” could use a little work. Still, there was little doubt in the faces of the humans who had left the table.

After the next séance, there would be no doubt left at all. 

Three days later Crowley was once again taking hands with the humans on either side of him and watching Madam Irinka across the table. Orlieth, disguised as a pale young woman, possibly one stricken with consumption, was seated at the medium’s left. 

Right. Time for a bit of a show.

A levitating table was, surely, a better display than one that just tipped a bit, Crowley decided. The effect was everything he’d hoped, except for the audible surprise in Madam Irinka’s voice when she attributed it to otherworldly presences. He let it hover a foot or so above the ground for a minute, then set it down gently, careful to rotate it just enough that all four legs ended up on top of someone’s foot. Every little bit helped, after all. Gratified murmurs, and a couple of groans of pain, sounded around the room.

“The spirits are definitely with us tonight! I feel their presence now,” Madam Irinka said in airy tones. “Perhaps they will speak to us. Do you wish to speak, spirits?”

She started through the alphabet, naming each letter until the spirits signalled. The rapping she could make by popping her toes was fine, but Crowley rather thought that the echoing effects and the gust of wind against the back of everyone’s neck that accompanied it really enhanced the effect. It never took more than minor miracles to amaze the humans, especially these days when they mostly didn’t ever expect any. The Age of Rationality or whatever the humans were calling it had made it both much easier and much harder to live on Earth as an occult entity*.

*Crowley had gleefully taken credit for many of the scientific advances of humanity, despite the fact that most of them had in fact been driven entirely by the humans themselves. What Hell didn’t understand was that truly new ideas required imagination, and although Crowley did, in fact, have one, it didn’t come demon-standard. If his superiors had known a bit more about humanity, they would have realized that Crowley couldn’t have been responsible for many of the innovations that he’d claimed; of course, if they had known a bit more about humanity, a large number of events would have gone differently.

By the time Madam Irinka had finished laboriously tapping out a message concerning jam tarts, Crowley had worked a few more miracles, several ladies in the room were on the verge of swoons or hysterics, and two conclusions had been drawn. One was that working miracles to convince humans that a medium was contacting supernatural forces was definitely going to work. The other was that any serious work was going to have to be with a medium who didn’t take so blessed long to communicate a single sentence. Talking directly to the spirits, that was the ticket. 


End file.
